Young WA farmers flock to Victorian grain conference

With the common refrain from young farmers "there's just not enough time", it was an encouraging sign to see the return of Graingrowers Innovation Generation conference in Victoria this week.

The event, now in its seventh year, is has a program aimed specifically at farmers under the age of 40, and this year had a theme of Australian Agriculture in the Asian century.

York farmer Guydon Boyle has just returned from Geelong, where he was mixing with 140 other young farmers from around the country and he says he was keen to join about 20 other West Australians who made the journey across the Nullabor.

He says he got a lot out of the conference theme of 'Australian agriculture in the Asian century'.

"A lot of it I think is more focussed on what industry can do but I think the farmers and the growers themselves need to support industry in regards to helping them develop those relationships with Asia and I think that's a really strong point, these things don't happen without strong relationships and in order to ensure our future that's one thing we're really going to have to work on."

He says aside from the networking opportunities, he also saw new technology at the conference he hopes will make a difference at home.

"In terms of the technology applications for your farm in the future and some of the other aspects of this course were your risk management, that stuff's really important for us and I think that was a big area for me, plus also you bring back a lot more energy and you become a lot more focussed knowing everyone else is doing the same thing."